The road to the SaskTel provincial men’s curling championship has come to an end for all local teams, but for one, the opportunity to continue was within their grasp.

The Bryan Rindal foursome, which includes Chris Bannerman, Angus Hemsworth and Larry Ziegeman, had two shots at winning a qualifying berth at the men’s northern playdowns in Meadow Lake on the weekend, but came away empty-handed on both occasions.

On Saturday, Rindal fell 8-4 to Scott Manners from North Battleford in one of the two “B” event qualifiers and on Sunday they were denied in a “C” event qualifier when Mike Armstrong from Saskatoon prevailed 6-5.

The Rindal rink opened the weekend with a 10-9 victory over Manners and then edged perennial contender Brad Heidt from Unity 7-6 before losing 10-5 in an “A” event semifinal match to former champion Bruce Korte from Saskatoon.

Rindal regrouped in the B-event beating Lloyd Fell from Unity 10-6 before the road crumbled with the qualifying losses.

Robin Shillington, who was curling out Shellbrook, lost all three of his games as did Doug Phelps from Prince Albert while Brad Bibby won his opening game before losing the next three.

Moving on to the SaskTel Tankard in Shaunovan at the end of the month are Terry Marteniuk from Yorkton, Korte, Manners, Darren Camm from Saskatoon and Armstrong.

Those five rinks will join five teams who qualified from the SaskTel southern playdowns this weekend along with six other rinks who pre-qualified through various levels of point accumulation.

While the men’s event was going on in Meadow Lake, the senior ladies qualifier was being staged in Melville with Jacqueline Swiderski from Christopher Lake and Linda Bjork from Prince Albert looking to move on to the provincials at that level.

As was the case in the men’s northerns, neither local club is advancing as Swiderski posted a 1-2 record while Bjork went 1-3.